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From The Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler
: :Lauren Bacall plays the title role (which is actually a supporting role) in this smart and snappy children's film adapted from the newberry Award-winning book. As Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, she's a very wealthy individual auctioning off a statue that may or may not have been sculpted by Michelangelo. The story quickly shifts over to Claudia (Jean Marie Barnwell), the middle child of the family. Of the three kids, she's the only girl, a straight-A student, and the one their mom relies on to help her with the chores. Claudia feels both taken ...
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The Brady Bunch Movie
: :The big-screen version of the hugely popular 1970s television sitcom takes an original angle: instead of simply re-creating the old series, the film spoofs it by presenting the merged family as blithely unaware that fashions and customs have changed in the '90s. Shelley Long and Gary Cole are hilarious as the ultra-square yet libidinous Mr. and Mrs. Brady, Christopher Daniel Barnes is an ideal Greg, and Christine Taylor seems practically cloned from the original Marcia. But director Betty Thomas (Private Parts) shifts the emphasis away from comparisons between old and new Bradys and ...
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The Brady Bunch Movie
: :The big-screen version of the hugely popular 1970s television sitcom takes an original angle: instead of simply re-creating the old series, the film spoofs it by presenting the merged family as blithely unaware that fashions and customs have changed in the '90s. Shelley Long and Gary Cole are hilarious as the ultra-square yet libidinous Mr. and Mrs. Brady, Christopher Daniel Barnes is an ideal Greg, and Christine Taylor seems practically cloned from the original Marcia. But director Betty Thomas (Private Parts) shifts the emphasis away from comparisons between old and new Bradys and ...
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Safe Passage
: :This family drama, based on a novel by Ellyn Bache, is overly familiar in its concentration of cracked secrets and family revelations all pouring down during a brief crisis. But it has a fine cast led by Susan Sarandon, and they make the whole enterprise a watchable affair. Sarandon plays a middle-aged mother of a brood of mostly grown sons. Suffering from empty-nest syndrome, she tends toward anxious dreams in which one or another of the boys is missing overseas. After having a nightmare that one--a Marine assigned to a Sinai peacekeeping force--has ...
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A Very Brady Sequel
: :This second ironic send-up of the old Sherwood Schwartz sitcom is even funnier than The Brady Bunch Movie. Shelley Long and Gary Cole return as the married heads of the merged family known as the Bradys, and Christopher Daniel Barnes and Christine Taylor reprise their roles as eldest stepsiblings Greg and Marcia. As with the first film, the clever premise finds the Brady clan caught in a kind of '70s time warp, while the rest of the world has moved well into the '90s. Greg is still looking for a 'groovy girlfriend,' Mr. ...
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Safe Passage
: :This family drama, based on a novel by Ellyn Bache, is overly familiar in its concentration of cracked secrets and family revelations all pouring down during a brief crisis. But it has a fine cast led by Susan Sarandon, and they make the whole enterprise a watchable affair. Sarandon plays a middle-aged mother of a brood of mostly grown sons. Suffering from empty-nest syndrome, she tends toward anxious dreams in which one or another of the boys is missing overseas. After having a nightmare that one--a Marine assigned to a Sinai peacekeeping force--has ...
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Matinee
: :Matinee offers one of the best matches of director and screenplay that you're ever likely to find. Raised on a steady diet of 1950s monster movies, Joe Dante later contributed to the genre with such films as Gremlins and Explorers, but it was Charlie Haas's script for Matinee that gave Dante a perfect platform for comedy, dramatic context, and nostalgic homage. Set in Florida during the Cuban missile crisis of 1962, the movie focuses on a schlock-movie promoter named Woolsey (inspired by real-life producer William Castle and played to perfection by John Goodman) ...
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The Brady Bunch Movie /A Very Brady Sequel
: :Matinee offers one of the best matches of director and screenplay that you're ever likely to find. Raised on a steady diet of 1950s monster movies, Joe Dante later contributed to the genre with such films as Gremlins and Explorers, but it was Charlie Haas's script for Matinee that gave Dante a perfect platform for comedy, dramatic context, and nostalgic homage. Set in Florida during the Cuban missile crisis of 1962, the movie focuses on a schlock-movie promoter named Woolsey (inspired by real-life producer William Castle and played to perfection by John Goodman) ...
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